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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146144">take a back seat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatenpickelsticks/pseuds/eatenpickelsticks'>eatenpickelsticks</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dream SMP Lyric drabbles [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alexis | Quackity Angst, Alexis | Quackity-centric, Body Horror, Body Shaming, But at the same time it's f r i e n d s h i p, Enemies to Friends, Hybrid Alexis | Quackity, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jschlatt Being a Jerk (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Spy Toby Smith | Tubbo, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Wingfic, bad wing care, kudos to collin, man quackity does not have a fun time, quackity deserves better - Freeform, winged quackity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:22:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,077</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatenpickelsticks/pseuds/eatenpickelsticks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>quackity is starting to hate this server, he can't stand being belittled and being killed a little inside every day.</p><p>technoblade hates everything, so that's that.</p><p>...</p><p>canon divergence where quackity has more influence than he thinks, and he sees more than what people give him credit for.</p><p>he isn't stupid.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexis | Quackity &amp; Jschlatt, Alexis | Quackity &amp; Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Alexis | Quackity &amp; Toby Smith | Tubbo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dream SMP Lyric drabbles [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021692</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>694</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. whispers sloth in curls of smoke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltyAsh/gifts">SaltyAsh</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>lyrics referenced is from the song black mambo by glass animals.</p><p>no warning for this chapter, though definitely the next. </p><p>maybe mention of physical abuse, an almost panic attack, blood in last scene, body shaming</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quackity was an idiot, and he can admit that. He's used to the almost blinding pain from respawning because of how reckless he is. Which why are the respawns so weird here, some deaths are permanent for whatever that means. He knows everyone thinks he's stupid, they laugh when he does something remotely stuttered, and he sticks the hurt feelings he gets deep down by his other issues.</p><p>Quackity does stupid things, it's part of his character.</p><p>He forgets to take care of his wings. He gets a crazy man put in office when he joins this stupid election and kicks a fucking kid out of his own freaking house. Sits there like an idiot.</p><p>Or not him, but Shlatt, <em> but Tommy was his friend, </em> he should've done something. But no, he watches them get shot at and chased out of this shithole.</p><p>He almost thinks about leaving the server, and he doesn't know why this feels so real when he can click a few things and leave.</p><p>Quackity griefed shit, people in this server forgot that. The winged hybrid was known for trashing the places he went to, and it's why Dream watched him for a few weeks. He usually joined things to destroy them, and this server was the exception.</p><p>They didn't even need him to do anything because they were fucking it up enough. He's watching the chaos below him, Eret holding Nicki back as she screams at them to stop. Jschlatt laughing beside him.</p><p>Quackity doesn't want to be here for the first time he joins this server. Fundy looks so confused and conflicted, and he hates it.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>Shlatt is okay, he tells himself. He even flirts with him because he just feels like screwing around. He steers Tubbo far away from the man when he's mad, which is more often than not. Shlatt is funny, Shlatt calls him stupid, Shlatt makes messes and asks him to pick it up, Shlatt doesn't do paperwork, Shlatt <em> ignores </em>  him, Shlatt sneers at Tubbo and Quackity  <em> sneers back, </em>  Shlatt  <em> taxes Nicki </em> ,  <em> Shlatt slaps Fundy, </em>  Shlatt,  <em> Shlatt, Shlatt, Shlatt- </em></p><p>If he heard Schlatt's name one more time, he might just lose his shit. </p><p>Needless to say, he was going for a fly before he killed someone or jumped into a ravine.</p><p>He invites Tubbo, but the kid is looking down at his scarf with a sad look on his face, and he knows that Tubbo misses his friend.</p><p>He tries to include Tubbo, taking him to Nicki's with Fundy or just talking to him. Maybe picking flowers to give George when the man decides to show up. Play some stupid game with Karl.</p><p>Tubbo still stares away though, almost as if he is constantly thinking of something else.</p><p>He wonders if they even remember they could leave this server and meet up, too caught up in their lives here. Separate and isolated. He sees the kid private chatting with Tommy all the time and ignores it. Quackity has no right to say anything, especially since he sends stupid shit to Wilbur when he's bored, who just ignores him. </p><p>Quackity hates to be ignored, which makes him twice as determined to actually get him to respond. Quackity is a spiteful person and Wilbur can not escape this.</p><p>He wonders if Schlatt would be mad that he was texting the fugitive, but then he decides he really doesn't care, he's just here to fly through the sky and ignore his problems.</p><p>He's in the air without a second thought, wings flapping around him, grey and white in the light. Soaring in the air, feeling better than he has in weeks. He doesn't realize how tense his shoulders are until he's doing flips in the air.</p><p>He's fine, feels good for once. Then a ping of someone joining the server appears, and he's almost too content to look.</p><p>Then he realizes the server chat is being spammed.</p><p>He sees the words and he doesn't understand them for a moment, not computing.</p><p>
  <strong> Technoblade has joined the game </strong>
</p><p>It's ridiculous, the amount of fear he feels as he freezes. He gets the very distinct feeling he is on the wrong side.</p><p>Technoblade was friends with Wilbur, and it's obvious what he joined for. Quackity remembers being cut down vividly, his feet almost coming out from underneath as he slams into the ground and panics.</p><p>Why the literal hell is Technoblade here? He logs out of the server so fast and contemplates never going back. He's not getting paid enough to deal with this shit.</p><p>Then he thinks of Tubbo, who flinches when Schlatt raises his voice or looks at him too hard. And he logs back in.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>"Look, I know you talk to Tommy." Tubbo freezes at him, Quackity had pulled him aside to talk to him out of Schlatt's range of hearing.</p><p>Tubbo looks terrified and he's hugging him automatically as the kid starts to sob.</p><p>"Oh my god, oh shit, my bad, please stop-" Tubbo hugs him back arms brushing wings, and he can feel the effort the boy is taking to stop his crying. He doesn't look Quackity in the eyes, and he shakes in the older teenager's arms. Quackity feels like a horrible person, and rubs Tubbo's back to comfort him. Tubbo is so much tinier than him.</p><p>"What are you going to tell Schlatt?" Quackity blinks, and oh. Tubbo thinks he was snitching him out. He grips Tubbo harder.</p><p>"Tubbo, I ain't telling Schlatt shit, okay? Guy spilled coffee on my shirt yesterday, the guy can get fucked." Tubbo brightens instantly, and Quackity feels like an asshole for making him cry in the first place.</p><p>"Oh, thank the lord, I don't know what I was going to do." The kid said nervously, messing with his shirt buttons.</p><p>"I was just going to tell you to be more discrete. Schlatt is going to be paranoid as hell since Technoblade joined." He's surprised when Tubbo brightens up at Techno's name.</p><p>Oh, Tubbo isn't scared of him. It makes Quackity feel even more stupid, his wings dip and Tubbo doesn't notice.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>"But seriously Quackity."</p><p>Schlatt was laughing, they were both laughing.</p><p>"Your wings are fucking ugly."</p><p>He just laughs and builds, blinking away tears because he knows that Schlatt is just being Schlatt, and he's being overdramatic by getting upset at it. It's his wings, it's his fault.</p><p>Schlatt is honest no matter how much he kind of hates the dude by now, he doesn't lie. It makes his wings pull back towards his body, self-conscious.</p><p>He looks in the mirror later and pulls his wings that usually flap back to the front for more inspection.</p><p>They are kind of ugly, aren't they?</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p>He hates grooming his feathers, he's screaming into a rag stuffed into his mouth so he doesn't bite his lips and tongue and lose even more blood.</p><p>Grooming his wings are always painful, by the time he gets around to do it. He pulls feathers that scream at him and they pull blood, and it's not fair.</p><p>He knows it can't be healthy, and every other bird hybrid's wings look so pretty and they tell him how calming preening is. They lie to him, he swears, and if they are right it's even worse. Because it's so nice for other people but of course it's fucked up for him.</p><p>Quackity curses their names as he starts sobbing as he fixes a feather, the pain overwhelming and he can feel his wing spasm. He despises this, hates the pain. <em> Hates his wings. </em></p><p>He looks at them in front of the mirror he's sitting at, and Quackity snarls, gripping his wing harshly, and it hurts as he screams, but he deserves it.</p><p>They are so ugly, and he can barely see them with how hard he's crying, hands shaking as they fall into his sink, covered in blood.</p><p>He doesn't want to be on this server anymore.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. or play pharaoh</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>he starts to understand his place in this careful thing they've built.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Major Self Harm Warning, if you can call it that, Bad coping mechanisms. Major Wing Self-Harm, slight temporary wing mutilation. blood and injury warning.</p>
<p>BIGGG suicide warning please, do not read if it will make you unwell or upset. this chapter deals with literal casual suicid and ideation, and the fear that comes with it. please back off if it will trigger you.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It takes him a moment to understand the consequence of his actions, how badly he had messed up. Himself and his situation.</p>
<p>He can’t do this. The state of his wings, it hurts so bad he is so stupid, Schlatt is going to kill him. His mind scrambles as he muddles through his chests in search of a healing potion, or anything. Quackity doesn’t even have bandages.</p>
<p>Wings that looked like his, bleeding and wrong, he couldn’t run a country with them, or be a public official. Something in his mind tells him he needs to stop, that something so undeniably horrible is faced in the fact he was worried about his appearance when he just had hurt himself.</p>
<p>His eyes land on a long piece of metal instead. His eyes trace up the smooth reflective surface and a dark thought enters his brain. It festers and infects his brain, and it’s not like he is thinking rationally right now anyway.</p>
<p>If he died. He would respawn. His wings would go back to their dormant state, ugly and not good enough, but it was better than the bleeding state they were in. His hands shake as he picks the weapon up, and he realizes he can’t do this. The man has died so much but this was different, striping all the dignity he had.</p>
<p>Coward, a voice rang in his head. And it sounds like the pain in his wings. Feels like blood and feathers on the floor deep within his chest with the echoes it created. Sounded like fucking Schlatt.</p>
<p>He stabs himself with a sword.</p>
<p>
  <strong>Quackity was killed by Quackity</strong>
</p>
<p><br/>…</p>
<p>The avian stares at the message and can’t breathe. He had to have a way to explain the message in chat, not that anyone was worried.</p>
<p>Eret: L<br/>Tubbo: F</p>
<p>The idea of pretending it was a joke, or Quackity dies all the time, he could just die more to make it seem reasonable. He could just leave the SMP, but he has no idea where he would go. Leaving Tubbo sounds like one of the cruelest things he could ever do. He can’t think, he doesn’t want to be here and feels like he can’t escape.</p>
<p>No one, seemed to care. To see how jumpy he was, or see the invisible scars on his wings from the night where Quackity had stripped parts of them raw.<br/>It’s not like he didn’t expect them to. </p>
<p>“Your wings look messier than before.” Quackity thinks that Schlatt might have meant it to be a joke. But Quackity doesn’t laugh at it.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p><br/>"Tear the signs down." He stares at the signs, then he looks at Tubbo. The boy looks horrified at the thought. Still though, nimble hands go to take down signs, and Quackity gentle grabs his wrists as the goat-hybrid turns around. Tubbo looks at him strongly, as Quackity takes the signs down as smoothly as he could, trying to keep them unbroken in his inventory.</p>
<p>It was a small mercy, he would give them to Tubbo later.</p>
<p>Schlatt doesn't care.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Tubbo smiles, and Tommy is happy to see him later. This is good, this is okay. This is fine. </p>
<p>“I got ya,’ Tubs.”</p>
<p>...</p>
<p><br/>He knows he needs to stop, this is wrong, but when he pulls another feather, and blood comes out and it's so painful, but then-</p>
<p>There is relief, so raw and it hurts, but he feels happy. Maybe it was because he's indulging in a stress habit, but it's so easy. God, it feels like a rush, something that it shouldn’t. Schlatt had sneered at his wings, and Quackity was so hyper aware of any attention to pay at them. </p>
<p>For the first time in a long time, and he pulls another feather and feels euphoria, he feels good about preening his wings. In the most twisted and fucked up way, some deep part of him says that it’s not preening at all, and that he just doesn’t know enough</p>
<p>This is wrong, something that feels good shouldn’t hurt him. It’s not like he can’t respawn again, even if the thought is still insanely scary. This shouldn’t be a decision he was thinking about doing. The irrational thought of flying enters his brain, he can’t not with his wings like this. He should, should take the time to fly. He hadn’t done it in a while, Tubbo had even said something about it today.</p>
<p>He stops before it gets as bad as last time, not again he promises he won’t do this again, and even still he stares in the mirror. The wings were meant to look more groomed, and maybe they do in some artificial way. And his stomach sinks when he realizes it’s not enough. They don’t look better, or pretty, and that he was so stupid that all he did was make them worse. </p>
<p>It would be better to just start over.</p>
<p>He does pull the sword out of the box with no more thought.</p>
<p>
  <strong>Quackity was killed by Quackity.</strong>
</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Quackity was, he wanted to go flying, but for some reason his feet were stuck to the ground.</p>
<p>It took him twenty minutes to get in the air, to calm down enough and avoid looking at his wings.</p>
<p>The feeling of flying seems to stripe away days of pain, the memory of hands pulling on his feathers and death and blood everywhere. Quackity flies for hours, until he is exhausted.</p>
<p>He is so far from Manberg, but he knows the direction, and he has this. He starts to walk through the woods, breathing in deep and taking the first in. Feeling more comfort than he has in days.</p>
<p>Fear is like this, it strikes into your brain like a fire, or it creeps on to you. It chokes you either way, limits you.</p>
<p>Seeing someone in the woods makes Quackity afraid. It’s because he recognizes the figure, the way it’s arm paves up like it’s carving into the sky to slice you down.</p>
<p>Technoblade is just standing in the middle of the woods, mid-swing of his ax on a tree, seemingly focused. He swerves his body and long ears flicker as they take the avian in, almost detecting his presence instantly.</p>
<p>His eyes rake across Quackity’s body, and he doesn’t recognize him. It doesn’t itch on Quackity like it would’ve before. Maybe it’s better that Techno doesn't remember him. Dark eyes linger on his wings for a moment, and he bristles and pulls them closer to his back.</p>
<p>The air between them is stressed, not thick, Technoblade looks like a full out predator. Eyes dilated and ears flexed out, body standing like the edge of the rockiness of the mountain he reminds Quackity of. A landmark of stone. The piglin is a literal god with the right resources.</p>
<p>The ax is iron, glinting, wooden splinters on the edges where it had been tearing down the tree. He wonders how many animals, people, Technoblade has killed with it. How much blood had been washed of it. Quackity should be scared, but he is more ashamed in that moment, that he is so weak that the idea of killing the piglin hybrid seems impossible.</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to be here, and he decides to leave while Technoblade just stares at him in impassive but attentive glory. The man should’ve watched going in the woods anyway.</p>
<p>He stares down at Quackity, looking like a mountain that is untouchable, and in a way he is. Someone like Quackity wouldn’t stand a chance against Technoblade, a man built from gold and resembles a god.</p>
<p>Quackity just walks away, and Technoblade looks confused. Eyes taking in the walking figure and trying to piece together what had happened.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Blood lies on the floor again, Quackity feels fucked up. He didn’t mean to go this far this time, his hands were almost too shaky to pick up the sword. His own feathers laid throughout the house, hands not being stopped by reason or forfeit. He needed to feel something, and he guessed pulling feathers did it. He would rather hurt himself than go outside and hurt others.</p>
<p>He can’t breathe, he can’t do this, and the sword falls out of his hands as his head swims. He lets out a sob, he feels like he is bleeding out to death. The sword seemed worlds away, he needed to respawn, needed to die. He felt so useless in the woods, the feeling made him here now. He was so powerless, and Quackity’s mind fell apart without power.</p>
<p>Then a dark thought entered his mind, he didn’t even need the sword, he was bleeding out right now, on this floor in a house no one else bothers to go in. He wants someone to be there, to heal him, he doesn’t want to die so desperately, and he doesn’t have the energy to move and his body is weak. His wings feel heavier than they ever have before.</p>
<p>And slowly, he does die, again.</p>
<p>
  <strong>Quackity bled to death.</strong>
</p>
<p>..</p>
<p>Fundy is funny, even though he teases Quackity a lot, not like he isn’t used to it. His ears flicker when he talks and perk up when he is interested in something Quackity says. The avian tries to make those moments as often as he can.</p>
<p>Quackity slips on the boards, high up in the sky, and he falls. It’s ironic, he is a winged hybrid. A waterfowl, water doesn't bring him down. Or it shouldn’t in theory, his feathers also seem dry to him, no matter how much he uses the oil from his wing oil glands to cover them in it. He didn’t know the anatomy of his own wings, and he just moved too fast to care either.</p>
<p>Now he could just die, and respawn and they would return to a passive state. His wounds would heal, his wings turn passable again, not good, never good, not good enough, and he would be fine. He doesn't mind dying.</p>
<p>There is a moment, when he realizes he can fly, and that he doesn’t. It doesn’t hit him to spread his wings, so used to the idea of dying that it doesn’t pause to let his body slam into the ground roughly and break. Death isn’t something that he does not know the feeling of. He shatters because of his hesitance.</p>
<p>His wings should flutter out, catch his body, he was born to fly.</p>
<p>They just let him fall instead.</p>
<p>
  <strong>Quackity fell from a high place</strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry I have been kind of dead lmao, my bad.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi :D, if you know my fics you know I can't write angst without fluff so the constant angst in this will probs be a one time thing but POG. Also Schlatt is cool I just made him an ass to fit my story,,,</p><p>It gets pretty bad for quackity before it gets better</p><p>1. What was your favorite part? ;D<br/>2. Have a nice day! :&gt;</p></blockquote></div></div>
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